Today we fly! Our "put-in" time is scheduled at 2 pm, and so we are now wrapping up the final details before we leave town. Over the past couple of days, we added a little bit more food to our stores (frozen food like steaks and fish, for example), and I include here a few photos of the store room for those who are curious about what the food locker looks like. As you can see, we have plenty of chocolate!

In addition, I have added a few more photos of the scenery around McMurdo, and even though some of these are similar to ones I sent last time, I included them because the scenery is always just a little bit different as the weather and the light is constantly shifting. One of the photos is the trail up Ob Hill, to give a sense of what an Antarctic trail looks like. Also, look for the photo of Scott Base (the New Zealand base, about two miles from McMurdo). You need to look carefully to find the base - in the lower right corner - which gives and idea of the scale of these photos. Then there are a few shots of Mt. Erebus and the other peaks in the area, and lastly, one of my favorites is the "sunset" shot at the end. While there is twenty-four hours of daylight here, the sun does get higher and lower in the sky, and some of these "sunsets" can be beautiful.

So now we head out into the Dry Valleys, and I will not be able to send any updates while we are there. But I will send photos and news of how the field season goes after our return to town. It won't be quite as warm as our nice comfy buildings here, but the scenery can't be beat! Until November (or maybe December),